What Brand?
China, this often feared and misunderstood country, pulled the greatest marketing and PR event of all times by holding the 2008 summer Olympics on its soil, and by showing the “Imperialist Capitalist World” that they could easily match and surpass any opening ceremony ever made in the west.
The event was touted by all news media as the epitome of the Chinese miracle.
There was a communist state fingered on so many occasions for its human rights abuses, making it onto the world scene as a vibrant country, open for business with yearly growth in excess of 9% and billions of dollars of budget surpluses.
China has even made it a point to become the second holder of US treasury securities, right after Japan with 502 billion dollars worth of such securities, which not only means that China holds the U.S. by the b---s, but also that without them, the US could not continue spending billions of dollars to save their faltering financial system.
The “China brand” looked upon with envy, became the wonder kid of the new economy shaping the world of the post 2000 internet bubble.
Maintaining a firm grip on power and resenting dissent while opening its economy at a dizzying pace. This Hybrid “commytalist” system looked perfect until…
Until news broke out about the Melamine tainted milk. It seems in their greed feed, quite a few Chinese businessmen forgot that Melamine was an organic base and a trimmer of Cyanamid, often used to produce countertops, dry erase boards, fabrics, glues, house wares and flame retardants!!!
Imagine feeding people with this stuff, unless the Chinese felt that they could still use the help of advertising gurus to explain why the Melamine ended-up in the milk by launching a campaign with the headline: “Melamine based milk gives your bones the strength of your kitchen countertop!”.
While the Melamine tainted milk just made the headlines, it was the latest addition to a string of scandals that seems to plague China from time to time.
Remember the lead-laced Mattel toys, a few months ago?... and how about the lesser known scandal of French retailer Conforama which had to withdraw a range of Chinese-made armchairs and sofas from sale, after hundreds of buyers complained of developing a painful eczema rash, that caused some of them to suffer 3rd degree burns!
Well as much as I admire, China for its economic supremacy and smarts in developing its “commytalist” system, I can only become dumbstruck on its lack of understanding of basic brand building.
A brand is to many a textbook word that represents labels of ownership through a name, term, design, or symbol, with the aim of attracting customers and making a sale.
For my part, I would like to add my own acronym for the word to simply embody what it should practically mean to brand owners:
“BRAND: Build Respect And Never Deceive”
At the heart of this statement lies consistency, quality and customer exhilaration as the cornerstone for making a brand a true winner in the long run.
While many brands stumbled along the way to greatness, the solid ones had enough credibility and customer love to be forgiven.
Coke, and Perrier are best remembered for their faux-pas and next to immediate forgiveness by customers.
Today, I wonder if Unilever, Cadbury and Nestle are proud to tout that some of their most famous milk based brands are made in China, and if they did not move into crisis mode to stem the potential disastrous effects on their own customer base and brand standing.
China as a country is still a formidable one, but China as a brand still has a long way to go to become respected and trustworthy.